Blog Archives

For the better part of the last decade, the notion of the “China price” has been central to understanding trends in global trade flows and the accumulation of a vast Chinese trade surplus. The “China price” flowed from the dramatically…

The Commerce Department reported that real GDP expanded at a 5.7% annualized rate in the final three months of last year, its second straight quarterly expansion. A strong increase in exports and a further moderation in inventory liquidation were the…

Even as numerous indicators suggest that the economy is emerging from recession, one of the most important of all continues to worsen. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today that the unemployment rate rose to 10.2% in October (subscription required), its…

The July employment report was released by BLS this morning and came as a pleasant surprise. The unemployment rate actually declined – by a tenth of a percentage point to 9.4% – for the first time since April 2008. Let's…

Wednesday marked the release of the 100th edition of NEMA's Electroindustry Business Confidence Index report. The EBCI tracks the evolution of business conditions facing the electroindustry in North America and three other world regions, as seen through the eyes of…

With sentiment growing that the banking system may survive after all, one may be tempted to look ahead to a day when ostensibly private entities will once again be politely asked to bear their losses without recourse to the public…

Retail sales tumbled in December, plunging by 2.7% from a month earlier. Naturally, the stock market cratered on January 14, the date of the data release, with the Dow Jones index sliding nearly 250 points and the S&P 500 off…

Writing in the WSJ yesterday (subscription req'd), Karl Rove takes both major party presidential nominees to task for their frequent aversion to the notion that a free society should allow market mechanisms to appropriately allocate its scarce resources. A particular…

This weekend marks the start of the summer driving season (although one could be forgiven for not noticing, given recent weather conditions). Crude oil prices spiked to more than $135 per barrel on Wednesday and regular grade gasoline is touching…